Introduction
The relationship between God and creation is, fundamentally, a theological one that begs the question of how God acts in the world. The Scriptures are replete with examples of the "mighty acts of God." The Old Testament recounts how God parted the Red Sea, fed the Israelites in the desert, and raised Lazarus to life, among other myriad examples of divine action. While divine action presupposes a transcendent God who "acts," the nature of such action is subject to scrutiny today as evidence of the new science points to an evolving universe marked by uncertainty, change, chaos and self-organization. The apparent ability of nature to organize itself into new patterns of order challenges the Newtonian understanding of divine action as efficient causality. Does God "act" to change things or move them around? Does God intervene in creation to keep it moving in a particular direction? Or as Nicholas Saunders asks, "has belief in special divine action been irrevocably lost to science?” [1]
While there are many attempts today to re-imagine divine action in creation, including the novel theology of process thinkers, it is my belief that the Christian tradition still holds a wealth of ideas to be explored. Those thinkers who place an emphasis on divine essence describe God's action as one of final cause in which the divine essence is the principal cause of creation. Conversely, those writers who maintain that God's ontos is love describe a trinitarian structure of God at work in creation in which unity and plurality are equally primordial and intrinsically related. It is in this respect that the medieval theologian, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, offers a theology that holds relevance for the contemporary scientific world. Following the tradition of fecund goodness, Bonaventure describes the Trinity as self-diffusive goodness that gives rise to a communion of persons in love. It is out of the overflowing goodness of the Trinity that creation emerges. There is a congruity or fittingness, therefore, between the Trinity and creation which Bonaventure sees in a particular way in the person of Jesus Christ.
My thesis is that divine action is essentially trinitarian. It is the one eternal-temporal act of the Father's love for the Son united in the Spirit. In this respect, God's action on discrete levels is the same action on the overall process of creation. That is, there is no distinction between God's action "top down" or "bottom's up", since the action itself is an act which is ultimately centered on the love of the Father for the Son and the fullness of Christ in the universe.
Divine Action and the Christian God
The notion of divine action in the Christian tradition has met little resistance at least up until the twentieth century where the rise of the new science has significantly altered our view of the universe. The change in our contemporary worldview has impelled scholars to reconsider the God-world relationship and, in particular, the way God "acts" in the world. As scientists today point to an evolutionary universe marked by chance, chaos, and self-organization, the question of divine action has become an increasingly complex and delicate one. Since Christian theology has always taken its cue from the created world, it is not surprising to find theologians today, attentive to the new science, struggling with the question of divine action. The models of divine action described in God, Humanity and the Cosmos, for example, describe the relationship between God and world from at least five different perspectives. [2] "The problem of divine action," as James Wiseman writes, "hinges on the issue that "any change in the natural world necessarily involves an input of physical energy and this raises the question of how a spiritual, unembodied reality could bring about such an effect in our space-time continuum.” [3] Saunders states, "Of all the challenges science has raised for theology, perhaps the most fundamental is that it has brought into question the doctrine of divine action."[4]
Underlying the range of theories on divine action are two main concerns: 1) the omnipotence, freedom and omniscience of God, and 2) the integrity and freedom of creation, especially as science points to nature's inherent ability to self-organize. Proponents of kenotic theology suggest that God limits or withholds his power in order to relate to the world or allow the world its own freedom to be.[5] Those who oppose this type of theology claim that the notion of divine kenosis is a form of reduction, or revision of the traditional attributes of God. Michael Hoonhout, for example, claims that kenosis diminishes the power of God "so that his mind is no longer omniscient, his will no longer perfectly extensive or efficacious, and his power no longer infinite." [6] Following a Thomistic doctrine of God, Hoonhout warrants against equivocating God and world: "Because God is Creator his active immanence in the world is not at all on the same level as the natural order, so no competition or interference is possible." [7]
This type of radical distinction between God and world can be traced back to early patristic fathers whose efforts to maintain the absolute transcendence of God led to the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, a doctrine formulated to indicate that God creates "out of nothing.” [8] That is, God does not need any pre-existing materials to create.
Rather, God "acts" simply by the power of God's own self. The term ex nihilo underscored the idea that God creates a world truly distinct from Godself. While the notion of distinction between God and world was meant to underscore a transcendent God who is independent of the world, common belief distilled God and universe into two separate realities more or less over against each other, with God reaching into the world to act at particular moments. As Denis Edwards points out, this common way of imaging the God-world relationship resulted in an interventionist view of divine action with God intervening to create and to move creation in the right direction at certain times. [9]
Just as the patristic fathers sought to avoid any type of pantheism or conflation of God and world, so too the God-world relationship of Thomas Aquinas affirmed the distinctiveness of God's being compared to created reality. Thomas's doctrine of God placed a firm emphasis on God's essence over and above God as a Trinity of divine persons. [10] For Thomas, God is absolute being and as absolute being, the final cause of all that exists. While he sought to maintain the divine transcendent essence of God vis-à-vis the created world, such distinction obscured the Christian doctrine of God as Trinity in its relation to creation.
The emphasis that Thomas placed on God the Creator as final cause shifted in the enlightenment period as science developed as an independent discipline. The rise of Newtonian science emphasized God as efficient cause and helped promote the image of God as clockmaker and architect. God established the laws of the universe and adjusted them when necessary to ensure efficient operation of the world machine. [11] Newton's God reflected his science of motion.
Just as the universe was marked by things in motion, so too God was one who "moved things around.” Newton's opposition to the Christian doctrine of Trinity (anti-socinian) further enhanced the notion of divine action as that of a single, transcendent divine being who intervened occasionally to adjust the laws of the universe but who otherwise remained detached from the events of creation.
While there is a great desire today to move beyond Newton's God, we still find models of divine action that reflect an omnipotent, omniscient and transcendent God. The proponents of intelligent design theory, for example, point to the intricate order of the world as "proof" that the complex order of physical entities/systems in nature cannot arise simply according to their own internal laws or mechanisms.
The example of a living cell as a sign of "irreducible complexity" provides an argument for design from nature. [12] Since the components of a cell cannot function independently outside the cell and thus cannot be accounted for by evolution itself, there must be an ultimate designer. [13] Others for whom design may be too restrictive propose that God acts in all things at all times. Nancey Murphy, for example, states that God is a participant not only "in every (macro-level) event" but also in countless quantum-level events, for God's participation in the form "is by means of his governance of the quantum events that constitute each macro-level event.” Thus Murphy sees God acting as a "causal-joint" in the unfolding events of the physical universe. [14] Murphy's notion of divine action is not entirely different from Aquinas's notion of primary and secondary causality. While God is first or primary cause, God works in and through the created order as final cause so that "the finality of any secondary causal action is always a participation in the supreme goodness of God.” [15] Those who follow the Thomistic understanding of divine action make every effort to explain God's omnipotence as Creator and to prevent confusion between the divine and created orders of being. While the doctrine of ex nihilo forms the background of Thomistic theories of divine action, the God described as the One who acts seems to have more in common Aristotle than with the God who is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. The question of divine action is really a question of the divine itself. To ask, "how does God act?" is to first ask, "who is the God who acts?” The problem with the monotheistic language of divine action is that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity becomes secondary to divine action. Portraying God [the Father] as a singular agent [Creator] seems to suggest that there is no role in creation for the Word and Spirit. [16] Essentially, the Trinity drops out of the equation when considering the God-world relationship. This is a consequence, I believe, of placing the emphasis on divine essence over Trinity. When one turns to the Franciscan school of theology, especially the Parisian school under Alexander of Hales, however, one finds a wholly different emphasis.
Examining the nature of the Trinity and the possibility of Incarnation, Alexander explored the question whether God is a Trinity in God's own self, or because of a creation or an incarnation. In his view, there is more to creation than simply an esse finitum brought about ex nihilo by God into actual esse. As a Christian he maintains that God is triune and thus the theological insight into the mystery of creation, as we know it, needs to be seen within a trinitarian context. Kenan Obsorne writes: "The doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine which not only speaks of God within God's own self, but also maintains that the triune nature of God affects all ad extra activities of God, including both creation and incarnation.” [17] Alexander concluded that there is no necessity in God for either creation or incarnation. Rather, the power to create and the power to be incarnate focuses on the divine nature as such, rather than on a person of the Trinity. Creation is due to the goodness and wisdom of God, that is, to the Spirit and to the Word, and not merely to the unnecessitated power of God appropriated to the Father. It is not merely the ad extra activity of a unitarian God, but an ad extra activity of a triune God.[18] Fundamental to God's action is God's being as self-diffusive goodness (bonum est sui diffusivum), a principle which Alexander derived from the Pseudo-Dionysius.
The authors of the Summa Fratris Alexandri suggested that we may be making a "cosmocentric" or "cosmo-morphic" error in assuming that goodness is secondary to being in the Godhead. [19] Since nature refers to action, creation and Incarnation find their sources in the divine nature understood as a principle of action rather than in the divine essence. [230] The Franciscan theologian Bonaventure (1217-1274) was a student of Alexander of Hales and clearly advanced his conception of God as Trinity. Bonaventure maintained that self-diffusive goodness or love is the basis of creation; thus, it is the Trinity who creates and to whom creation returns. Since the Trinity is integrally related to Christ, Bonaventure's theology allows us to posit a central role for Christ in creation. The Incarnation is not an intrusion into an otherwise evolutionary universe nor is it unrelated to the essential role of God as Creator.
Rather, the whole process of creation marked by contingency and freedom points to Christ in whom the cosmos finds its God-intended fulfillment.
Notes
1. Nicholas T. Saunders, "Does God Cheat At Dice? Divine Action and Quantum Possibilities," Zygon 35 (2000): 518.
2. God, Humanity and the Cosmos, ed. Christopher Southgate et al. (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999), 210 - 25.
3. James A. Wiseman, Theology and Modern Science: quest for coherence (New York: Continuum, 2002), 114.
4. Saunders, "Does God Cheat At Dice?," 518.
5. John F. Haught, Science and Religion: From Conflict to Conversation (New York: Paulist, 1995), 160; Ibid, "Chaos, Complexity and Theology," Teilhard Studies 30 (Summer, 1994): 16-17; Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 87; John Polkinghorne, "Kenotic Creation and Divine Action," in The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2001), 90 - 106.
6. Michael A. Hoonhout, "Grounding Providence in the Theology of the Creator: The Exemplarity of Thomas Aquinas," Heythrop Journal 43 (2002): 3.
7. Ibid.
8. Sjoerd L. Bonting, "Chaos Theology: A New Approach to the Science-Theology Dialogue," Zygon 34.2 (June 1999): 324 - 26. According to Bonting, "the concept of creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo) arose in the battle of the early church against Marcionism and Gnostic dualism, both of which proposed the formation of the material universe by a demiurge. The new concept was first expounded by Theophilus of Antioch (c. 185) and later by Augustine, and it was thereafter almost universally accepted in the church, although it was not included in the ancient creeds. It was formulated dogmatically at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and reaffirmed by the Vatican Council of 1870. It was also accepted by Luther and Calvin"; Colin E. Gunton, The Triune God: A Historical and Systematic Study (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998), 65 - 96; cf. Jürgen Moltmann (God in Creation, 74) who writes: "The formula creatio ex nihilo is an exclusive formula. The word nihil is a limit concept: out of nothing-that is to say out of pure nothingness. The preposition 'out of' does not point to any pre-given thing; it excludes matter of any kind whatsoever."
9. Denis Edwards, The God of Evolution (New York: Paulist, 1999), 30.
10. For Thomas, the divine essence is conceived, metaphysically, as prior to the Father's person. It is because the divine essence is rational and volitional that Father, Son and Spirit exist for Thomas. Since the act of creation is attributed to the divine persons commonly in their unity, no signs of trinity appear in the created effect whereby the trinity can be inferred, a position opposite that of Bonaventure. See Kevin P. Keane,"Ordo Bonitatis: The Summa Fratris Alexandri and Lovejoy's Dilemma," in Jacob's Ladder and the Tree of Life: Concepts of Hierarchy and the Great Chain of Being, ed. Marion Leather Kuntz and Paul Grimley Kuntz (New York: Peter Lang, 1987), 66; Christopher B. Gray, "Bonaventure's Proof of Trinity," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 67.2 (1993): 203.
11. Ian G. Barbour, Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 21 -3.
12. Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box: the Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York: Free Press, 1996); William B. Dembski, "Science and Design," First Things (October 1998): 21-7; ibid., No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased Without Intelligence (Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).
13. Kenneth Miller has argued against this notion of intelligent design by pointing to a number of studies showing that complex biochemical systems could indeed be produced in a step-by-step Darwinian way. See Kenneth Miller, Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (New York: HarperCollins, Cliff Street Books, 1999), 293-303.
14. Nancey Murphy, "Divine Action in the Natural Order: Buridan's Ass and Schrodinger's Cat," in Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Robert Russell et al., 2nd ed. (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publ.; Berkeley, CA: The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 2000), 343.
15. Hoonhout, "Grounding Providence in the Theology of the Creator," 11.
16. Edwards, God of Evolution, 78.
17. Kenan Osborne, "Alexander of Hales: Precursor and Promoter of Franciscan Theology," in The History of Franciscan Theology, ed. Kenan B. Osborne (New York: The Franciscan Institute, 1994), 25.
18. Osborne, "Alexander of Hales," 27.
19. Kevin P. Keane, "Why Creation? Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas on God as Creative Good," Downside Review 93 (April 1975): 116- 17.
20. Alexander of Hales, Quaestiones Disputatae "Antequam esset frater," (Quarrachi [Florence]: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1960), 197.